“It’s difficult for those of us living in today’s mundane world to swallow the truth when we hear it, and the Vimalakīrti Sūtra contains a great deal about the very highest of high truths. Don’t imagine, though, that the nature of the highest truth is mystical or mythological, because it isn’t. Although the absolute truth cannot be expressed, conceived or conceptualised, all the techniques and tools necessary to establish it have been laid out for us by the Buddha himself. The Vimalakīrti Sūtra… describes astonishingly effective methods for deconstructing anything and everything that is not the truth.”

The Lotus Sūtra’s key message is that Buddha-nature is inherent in all sentient beings and all have the potential to achieve Buddhahood. The Lotus Sūtra is one of the most influential Mahāyāna Sūtras, most popular in east Asia and considered to be the culmination of the Buddha’s teachings. In the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha expoundsthe nature of ultimate reality through many stories and parables.In the words of the great Zen Master Hakuin, “The ancient teachings illumine the mind, and the mind illumines the ancient teachings".